Skin grafting is an essential component of reconstructive surgery after burns, trauma, tumor excision, and correction of congenital anomalies. There are approximately 1 million burns per year in the U.S. alone, which result in about 100,000 admissions to burn units, about ⅓ of which require skin grafting. Skin grafting in reconstructive surgery is often required to alleviate deformity. The best possible skin available for grafting would be skin from the same patient taken from a donor site elsewhere on the body (referred to as an autograft). Suitable skin graft donor sites, however, are limited not only by body surface area, but can also be affected by previous graft harvest or trauma. Because of the importance of the skin in preventing infection, either the donor skin must be used to cover a larger area than it originally covered or some suitable replacement material must be used.
Devices useful for stretching tissue such as skin are therefore needed to increase the area available for grafting.